The Mallacoota Mouth Issue 1668 19.10.2017 Page 19

Mallacoota seems to be lately gifted with welcoming koalas.

We have seen koalas crossing for their safety on the wide open and busy road off Mallacoota’s roundabout and we also admired them crossing lakeside drive road.

It was a lovely, sunny, calm beginning of the day. This morning we thought we heard possums to be unusually still active.

It sounded like a troupe of hobnailed booted cat burglars trying to find a way into our house. This is the noise possums normally create at night on tin roofs.

Then Margaret discovered a koala hanging outside the bedroom window and this of course was the beginning of a very exciting and memorable morning for us.

We found the koala first clinging to the edge of the roof but finally carefully backing up onto a safer place.

It was a fully grown rather adorable koala that simply wanted to get off this unfriendly strange ‘tree’.

We tried to help out but could not see a way how to coax the confused animal to safety.

It is simply a corrugated, slippery iron roof at great height.

Mogli prepared blankets and towels to catch and pick up the lost and confused visitor.

Looking at its claws I thought we should better wait a while and not panic and see what else would eventuate.

Our new friend found a remarkable way off the roof.

After checking out the complete area, he found a way and jumped and clung onto the firemen’s pole!

Margaret raced downstairs and prepared lots of pillows and cushions to allow for an eventual softer landing on the concrete path.

It would have been hard for this adorable creature to get off the pole as the pole is by nature a freestanding safety item. Normally it is meant as a fire escape. Or as a fun descend from the roof, ‘even for koalas’.

After some time waiting and enjoying the furry visitor on our roof I offered it a container of water. It seemed calm and relaxed, looked around, and sipped a little water. Tried a little more and slowly, hands over feet, handled himself down the galvanised pole, landing safely!

‘Our’ koala, with all our admiration of its skill, found a near-bye living tree, spend some time there, and went to other trees.

In appreciation we enjoyed the present of a remarkable mind who found the only upright item on the roof that might looked even a little like a tree pole.

This rare opportunity to be able to spend some time with a native animal; not a sick animal or a caught and tamed animal; gave to us and the koala a chance to say ‘hi’.

We still wonder which one of the koalas about is ‘ours’.

Who ever thought our native animals are dumb??

Peter Kurz and Editor Mogli Kurz